Wonky Those are beautiful ... Papa Womble will be very pleased with those ... wish him well from us.

Fairy, those sheep are lovely ...... but I've a soft spot for Southdowns ... I used to keep a small flock ... the breed was traditionally kept in orchards ... they're compact and easy to manage ... they're so biddable that you can virtually paint a white line on the ground and they won't walk over it ... not escape artists like so many sheep ... also they don't bark trees like some, they just like nibbling the grass.

We also had Manx Laoghtans ...........escape artists and real 'characters'. Our ram (Harald) badly injured my thumb joint by smashing it against a fence post with one of his horns. A real problem for a week or two when I was milking the goats

Meanwhile - you could have used google to solve all your other queries about pruning lavender or identifying the buddleia that was cut down and finding suggestions to fill in the blank but you came on here and got real answers from real people speaking from their own experience and giving advice freely.

Absolutely Nut ... and also questioners get the benefit of several people's knowledge, so they can say "you might be right in saying that it's a Whatchamacallit, but given that it's got a slightly hairy stem and you say it's growing happily in boggy ground, it might well be a Whoojamaflip ......... if we look at the shape of the seedpods after it's flowered we'll know which one it is ........." you don't get that from Google

If they're above the graft they can't be suckers ... they'll be new young growth ... properly treated they'll produce good flowers next season ... later flushes are quite often not as luxuriant as earlier ones.

Train them as near to horizontally as you can without snapping them, winding them around your arch, and this will stimulate the development of side shoots which will produce the flowers next year.

Hosta It's like the boy in the class room who sticks his hand up before hearing whole question ... but if he'd been in my Ignore cupboard I wouldn't have known that he'd wrongly contradicted me and misled the questioner, would I?

All is good with us thanks Hosta appt with GP next Wed re a referral to The Knee Man. I take it your Lovely Hub has his decorating hat on and you'll be ferrying cups of tea across the way in between mowing the grass? I told you, what you need is a little flock of lovely Southdown ewes ... they'll keep the grass short for you

Wonky glad you had lovely celebrations Have a nice day today.

Fairy don't you go overdoing things!!!

It's dry here, so far, so there's a small load in the washing machine ... I've done a quick tidy upstairs and will dash to the farm shop as soon as OH has had time to organise it, then I'll be back home and watching the athletics again ... I heard from DS yesterday ... he's setting up the sound stage for the end of the marathon course on Tower Bridge ... he's having a fantastic time, he said the atmosphere's amazing and the security is the strictest he's ever come across, some areas are really like a Ring of Steel, but no one's getting tetchy about it